Man Finds School Paddle From 1968 Hidden Inside Wall in Kennewick

KENNEWICK, WA. -- We asked for your help and we got an
unbelievable response. First we want to thank our amazing viewers
for all their help.

A paddle from 1968 is what everyone is talking about. There
are 28 names on it, many people might recognize, like Greg Rish
or Davie Bledsoe.

A couple days ago we first brought you the story of Rick Fehr
who found the paddle in the wall while fixing a leak underneath
his sink. The paddle is from 1968 and says "Teacher of the
Year Award Winner Mr. Frank Deymonaz".

Through all your emails we've narrowed it down to a 6th, 7th,
or 8th grade classroom from either Jefferson Elementary or Chief
Jo Junior High. One man emailed us whose name is on this paddle.
And he solved the question of what it was used for, we believe.

He said he doesn't remember being in any special club, but
teachers at that time, including Mr. Deymonaz used different
items for punishment, like a paddle.

We've also learned a lot more about Mr. Deymonaz. Several
people have told us that he was the principal of Vale Elementary
and Middle School in Oregon.

Frank unfortunately passed away in 2005, according to our
emails and an online obituary, which is what Rick thought
happened. Now the goal is to find the closest remaining relative.

And we're well on our way. We've had two emails from people
claiming to be his grandchildren, including one who is currently
serving in Afghanistan. So this story has even reached overseas.

Stay tuned everyone, we should have another story on the
paddle coming soon.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE:

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KENNEWICK, WA. -- A man in Kennewick needs your help to return
a piece of history to its rightful owner.

You never know what could be hiding inside the walls of your
house. Rick Fehr found that out two months ago when fixing a leak
beneath his bathroom sink.

"Behind this wall," Fehr told us. "It was below
the pipe. It was real soft and I just pushed through it. And I
hit something and I dug it out. And out came that paddle."

Out came this piece of mysterious wood in nearly perfect
condition. On top reads "Class of 1968." On the bottom,
"Best Teacher of the Year Award Winner, Mr. Frank Deymonaz."

Rick immediately knew what the paddle was used for, corporal
punishment. He grew up in Pennsylvania, and felt the sting of a
few paddles when he was a boy.

"Oh yeah," Rick said. "I know how they feel."

"Not good right?" we asked. "No not at all."

There are 28 names on the paddle. Some of them with numbers
next to their name, Rick assumes for how many times they were
paddled that year. None got the paddle in Mr. Deymonaz's class
more than Matt McElroy.

"Maybe he was the trouble maker," Rick joked.
"Maybe he stole it."

Where Rick found the paddle left him curious.

"Wow. Why would somebody have this here," Rick said.
"Because the house isn't that old, it's the class of 68. I
think somebody took it away, stole it, and were going to get
caught with it. And said I want to get rid of it."

After hours of online research and discussions with people on
Facebook, Rick thinks he narrowed down the paddle to a Richland
school. He talked to the school district but didn't get much help.

"They just didn't seem interested in it," Fehr said.

Rick is now focusing on finding any last remaining relative of
Mr. Deymonaz.

"My ultimate goal is to find this gentleman's family
whether it's his children or his wife," Fehr said. "And
I'd like to present it to them and say, this is what I found and
I think it should belong to you guys."

Because Rick thinks on his dinner table and beneath his sink
are two locations where the paddle doesn't belong.

"It needs to be a proper place and it's not my
house," Rick said. "It's not mine."

Next time you do some home repairs, keep an eye out. You just
never know the history you might find, resting inside a wall.

Here are the 28 names on the paddle. The spelling of the names
might not be exact since the handwriting is old and some of it is
illegible.

al.com, 6 November 2015

The strong bond that almost led Leonard Fournette to Alabama

By Joseph GoodmanAl.com

(extracts)

NEW ORLEANS -- They called the paddles the Boards of Education.

When LSU running back Leonard Fournette walks onto the field
on Saturday at Tuscaloosa's Bryant-Denny Stadium, the Heisman
Trophy frontrunner will share a strong bond with three people on
the sidelines that has just as much to do with corporal
punishment as it does with football.

Fournette, his younger brother Lanard, LSU running backs coach
Frank Wilson and Alabama running backs coach Burton Burns are
graduates of St. Augustine High School in New Orleans' 7th Ward.
They all played running back for the Purple Knights, and, of
course, they were all subject to paddling at the locally famous
Catholic school known in New Orleans simply as "St.
Aug." Discipline is a key to learning, and for years that
lesson was taught there one swing at a time.

There was a wooden paddle for every misdeed.

The strict environment shaped Leonard Fournette into the
player and person he is today, and influenced the professional
culture of Burns' position unit at Alabama, which has produced a
dynasty of elite running backs. It also created an unbreakable
bond between alumni. Inside the beating heart of one of the
biggest college football games of the season is a personal
rivalry of men who consider each other brothers. Back in the 7th
Ward, its residents view the game not only as a reflection of St.
Augustine, but also the neighborhood as a whole. The school and
its ward are special places, and they have helped raise
some titans of college football.

"St. Augustine High School is the only one of its kind in
the United States of America," said school principal Sean J.
Goodwin. "We are the only African-American, male, Catholic
school -- all boys -- in the United States of America. We are the
only one. There is no other."

There are other all-boys predominately black Catholic high
schools in the country, but Goodwin's emphatic pride isn't
misplaced. It's a short list of prep schools, period, with a
history as rich and socially important as St. Augustine, which is
tucked away unassumingly in one of New Orleans' most historic
wards. The significance of Saturday's game is more than just a
contest between two good college teams for the Fournettes, Burns,
Wilson and many in the 7th Ward and around the country.
Represented in both backfields will be a living legacy of one of
the most unique prep schools in the country, which is a
cornerstone of the black community in New Orleans, and a profound
source of unity for alumni who until five years ago shared a
fraternal brotherhood forged through the common experience of
corporal punishment.

The Archdiocese of New Orleans controversially ended paddling at St. Augustine in 2011, but "if you went to St. Aug before
then, you got paddled," says Goodwin. "Make a bad
grade, get paddled; talk in class, get paddled; not admit to
talking in class, everyone gets paddled -- basically any minor offense."

No tie? Board of Education. No belt? Board of Education.
Uniform untucked? There was wood for that, too.

"If the paddle was live, you were hit," Goodwin
said. "There was nobody who could escape the paddle. Nobody."

In other words, Fournette, who started at St. Augustine in
2008 as a seventh-grader, might be the last great back to come
out of the school with a seasoned backside.

[...]

The tight connection shared by all graduates of St. Augustine
is something similar to a fraternity, only perhaps closer. All
grads are welcomed at the school at all times, and, according to
the school's principal, it's a regular occurrence for a "St.
Aug man" to return to his alma mater and speak to a class.
The list of prominent and influential grads is long, but some of
the most notable are Arnold Donald, the CEO of Carnival
Corporation, Dean Baquet, executive editor of the New York Times,
Stan Verrett of ESPN, actor Carl Weathers, rapper Mack Maine,
former New Orleans mayor Sidney Barthelemy and, of course,
Alabama basketball coach Avery Johnson.

Opened in 1951 and run by the Society of St. Joseph of the
Sacred Heart, the school was influential in the desegregation of
high school athletics in Louisiana.

"When Saint Aug was born, it was like the diamond in the
rough, and it still is," said Goodwin, the principal.
"This little bitty school right here in the 7th Ward -- you
can go anywhere you want and you're going to find a Saint Aug
man. I went to Switzerland and found one of my people there.

The Marshall Project, New York, 11 November 2015

When School Feels Like Jail

Isolation rooms and paddling: What some schools in the South are doing to keep students in line.

By Eli Hager

(extracts)

A student inside the Yazoo City Alternative Learning Center,
an alternative school in the Mississippi Delta. Rory Doyle
for Medium/Bright

Rockmon Montrell "Rock" Allen, an 18-year-old from
Jackson, Mississippi, has never gone to jail. But school, he
says, was close enough. At Ridgeland High School, a large public
school in an increasingly black suburb of Jackson, he was
punished repeatedly for what seemed like minor reasons.

In the ninth grade, when he wore the wrong-color uniform or
didn't tuck in his shirt, Rock got "whooped," as he
puts it. That meant bending over, putting his hands on a desk,
and getting hit three to five times on the backside with a flat
wooden paddle. Mississippi is one of only four states -- the
others are Alabama, Georgia, and Texas -- where school districts
frequently use corporal punishment on students (although 19
states allow the practice by law). Teachers and administrators
openly use paddles -- and, in rarer cases, belts, rulers, and key
chains -- to whip kids into order.

In the 10th and 11th grades, according to Rock's official
disciplinary record, he was sent to in-school detention whenever
he spoke out of turn, questioned a teacher, was tardy, or refused
to take off his hat. In-school detention, which in some schools
is referred to as in-school suspension, takes place during school
hours. Instead of being in class, Rock would sit in an empty
room, doing nothing, for up to three days at a time.

"I wouldn't say I was a smart aleck," he says, "but I was known for speaking up." He recalls asking "why" a lot, like why the pilot of the Enola Gay wasn't considered "the worst murderer of all time," and praising Karl Marx during history class. By Rock's own description, he is curious by nature; he's always thinking, always speaking up. "Teachers either loved me or hated me," he says.

Then, in 2014, a few weeks into the 12th grade, Rock did the
same thing a 16-year-old black girl in Columbia, South Carolina,
did this October: He pulled out his cellphone during class.

When his principal told him to put it away, according to the
school, Rock responded with a verbal threat: "I'm going to
bust [the teacher] for taking everybody's phones," he said.
For that outburst, he was sent to Madison County Academic Option
Center, an "alternative school" 15 miles away. He was
required to stay there for four months.

In most states, students with emotional or learning
disabilities or who are low on credits and at risk of dropping
out are enrolled in alternative schools for long stretches,
usually a year or more. But in Mississippi, students are
temporarily placed there as punishment.

At Rock's alternative school, there were no windows in the
classrooms and hallways. Teams of up to seven police officers
regularly walked in and out, searching students' jackets. Rock
grew to like the sometimes-overwhelmed teachers, but, he says,
ninth- and 12th-graders were all held together in the same
crowded rooms and received no academic instruction for weeks at a time.

By December, Rock was released and tentatively put on
probation. He returned to his regular high school, where any
infraction would mean getting sent back to the alternative school.

Only a few days later, Rock was caught in the parking lot
during lunch -- a common practice that isn't against school rules
-- and charged with being "outside of his assigned
area" in violation of his probation.

He was sent back to the alternative school for the remainder
of his senior year.

The punishments Rock received -- the paddling, the in-school
detention, the stints in alternative school -- are not new.
Corporal punishment is a traditional practice in the rural South,
and alternative schools were established by the state of
Mississippi in 1993. But according to teachers and parents, use
of these methods is growing around the state, in part because of
increased pressure from both advocates and school administrators
to lower suspension rates and keep kids in the classroom -- and
in part because there is no money to implement less-punitive
alternatives, which would require training or hiring new staff.

Suspensions throughout the country have surged over the past
two decades, largely because schools have relied on so-called
zero-tolerance policies: If a student acts out, he or she is
kicked out of the classroom, either by suspension, expulsion, or
referral to law enforcement. In the late 1980s and early 1990s,
as juvenile crime rates and fear of adolescent
"superpredators" grew, legislatures and school
districts adapted the no-excuses rhetoric of "tough on
crime" laws into their approach to school discipline.

By 1997, 79 percent of schools around the country had
implemented zero-tolerance policies, and by 2000, schools were
suspending more than 3 million children per year. (By way of
comparison, that's the same number of students who will graduate
from public high schools this year.)

But a growing body of research shows that students who miss
many school days will return to the classroom behind on their
work, confused about what they've missed, and all the more likely
to act out. Left unsupervised during the day, without anything
constructive to do, they are more likely to get arrested, go to
jail, or ultimately drop out of school. According to a 2011
report from the Council of State Governments, students who have
been suspended or expelled are twice as likely to repeat their
grade and three times as likely to end up in the juvenile justice
system -- within a year -- compared to similar students at
similar schools.

Clockwise from top left: Students learn about tolerance at
Cleveland High School in the Mississippi Delta; a student asleep
in class at the Yazoo City Alternative Learning Center; students
walk through a metal detector at the Alternative Learning Center;
police park outside Cleveland High School after school. Rory
Doyle for Medium/Bright

Research also shows that punishments like suspensions and
expulsions are disproportionately meted out to black students.
They are three times more likely than their white peers to be
suspended and even more likely to be expelled or referred to law
enforcement for the same infractions, according to civil rights
data from the U.S. Department of Education.

Acknowledging the problem, in 2010, public schools in Boston
began discouraging suspensions and expulsions, which then dropped
from 743 to 120 in only two years. In 2013, Los Angeles banned
the practice of kicking students out of school for subjective
infractions like "willful defiance." Suspensions there
have also plummeted by more than 50 percent. And Bill de Blasio,
mayor of New York City, told schools earlier this year that from
now on, all suspensions must be approved by his administration.

In January 2014, the Obama administration issued new federal
guidelines under which schools must reduce their reliance on
out-of-school suspensions and expulsions. The Department of
Education's Office for Civil Rights has since been investigating
school districts across the country that use suspensions to
unfairly "push out" students of color and students with disabilities.

Mississippi, which suspends a higher ratio of black to white
students than any other Southern state, has received the message
loud and clear.

In the southeast part of the state, schools in the town of
Meridian -- which were investigated by the Department of Justice
for routinely suspending, arresting, and sending students to jail
for minor in-school infractions like using profanity, flatulence,
and "disrespect" -- have been ordered by their superintendent to stop calling the police unless a student commits a felony.

That in-house discipline includes policing the hallways,
having students walk through metal detectors daily, patting them
down, relying even more heavily on corporal punishment and
in-school detention, sending more students to alternative
schools, and surveilling them with cameras. The Tupelo Public
School District, in eastern Mississippi, for instance, recently
promised the Office for Civil Rights that it would "ensure
to the maximum extent possible that misbehavior is addressed in a
manner that does not require removal from school." In June,
the school board authorized security guards to start carrying
pepper spray in classrooms and hallways.

[...]

Tardiness is a paddle-worthy offense. Behavior labeled by
teachers as "defiance," "disrespect," "horseplay," or "disorderly conduct" gets the
same punishment. If a student wears the wrong uniform -- the
wrong-color shirt or pants, an untucked shirt, shoes that aren't
plain black or plain white, or, in some schools, jackets with a
zipper -- same punishment again.

"They been coming up with all kinds of new stuff. But
it's the same thing -- trying to catch us being bad," says
Keshaun, a student at D.M. Smith Middle School in Cleveland,
Mississippi, 20 miles from Rosedale. Keshaun says he recently
forgot his gym shorts and was taken into a back room to get
paddled. "It's called getting 'cookies,'" he says.
"They do it harder the worse they think you are."

[...]

Jarquez, a student in nearby Sunflower County, says that in
middle school, he was repeatedly patted down and told to open his
backpack; now that he's a sophomore at Gentry High School, in the
town of Indianola, Jarquez is regularly required to walk through
a metal detector. And every time he's a few seconds late to class
or is wearing the wrong belt, he immediately gets sent to
in-school detention for a paddling by one of the coaches.

Adoris Turner, a spokesperson for the Sunflower County
Consolidated School District, did not respond to the specifics of
what goes on at Gentry High School but emphasized, "What we
do may not be popular, but it keeps our children safe. We take
the safety of our children extremely seriously."

[...]

"Paddling and in-school detention, it's a short-term,
low-energy solution to all of that," says Jeremiah Smith,
who helps run the Sunflower County Freedom Project, which offers
after-school classes to kids in the central delta.

Carl Lucas, the algebra teacher and basketball coach at
Simmons High School in Hollandale, in the southwest part of the
delta, explains that these practices are highly traditional and
provide an efficient and reliable alternative to out-of-school
suspensions. "The parents, they almost all support it,"
he says, "and the children respond to it. It's what we have that works."

Unlike in the delta, teachers in Jackson don't have that
option. Corporal punishment has been prohibited here since 1991.
Cedrick Gray, superintendent of Jackson Public Schools, has
repeatedly instructed schools around the city to reduce their
reliance on suspensions. The police department is no longer
regularly called to disrupt fights and keep order. Teachers say
they are shamed for referring kids out of class too often.

"I agree suspending so many kids raised the chances of
their dropping out, getting involved with the police," says
Lynn Schneider, a 14-year veteran high school English teacher in
the school district. "But we've gone the opposite direction
-- discipline has fallen apart."

A paddle used for disciplining students during gym class at
D.M. Smith Middle School in Cleveland, Miss. Rory Doyle for
Medium/Bright

[...]

In a recent survey by the Jackson teachers' union, two-thirds
of respondents said their classroom feels "out of
control" on a daily or weekly basis, 60 percent said they
have been physically assaulted, and 46 percent said they are
considering leaving their job or even profession because of the
mayhem. Crucially, 62 percent said they saw no good alternatives
to suspension, expulsion, and police involvement for students who act out.

"We absolutely wish we could use corporal punishment --
that would be what works," says one language arts teacher
who did not want to be named. "If we don't use real force,
the transfer of power happens in an instant."

On a typically muggy Wednesday in October, students who have
recently misbehaved in the hallways of Yazoo City High School
show up at the doors of the Yazoo City Alternative Learning
Center -- located fifty yards away. Georgia Ingram, the
principal, says the alternative school has recently seen a
noticeable uptick in its student body, which she attributes to
the fact that the regular schools are trying to suspend fewer people.

Every morning, students at the Yazoo City alternative school
walk through a metal detector and roll up their pant legs so the
security officer, Rosie Stewart, can make sure they don't have a
cellphone in their socks. They also have to hand over their keys,
which, according to Stewart, "could be a weapon." Throughout the day, students must also walk on the right side of the hall, facing forward.

Stewart goes to training once a year to learn discipline
strategies from real police officers. "They showed us
everything -- how to look for drugs, to identify gangs, to lock
down the building, and also transition people out of
lockdown," she says. "And now I check in with the
police department at the end of the summer to see which kids I
should be looking at."

Mathis News, Texas, 12 November 2015, p.1

MATHIS -- During the September school board meeting, a school
policy was changed that will allow corporal punishment to be
implemented in all Mathis schools.

The new policy states: "Corporal punishment may be used
as a discipline management technique in accordance with this
policy and the Student Code of Conduct."

And though "corporal punishment" sounds harsh, it's
simply getting spanked at school when students misbehave.

Superintendent Benny Hernandez brought the change to the school
and during last Friday's parent summit he was on hand to discuss
the new policy with parents in attendance and what he hopes to
accomplish by bringing corporal punishment back in to Mathis' school system.

"Studies have shown, and you as parents would know, that if
you don't have discipline in the classroom, learning is never
going to occur," Hernandez said.

Click to enlarge

"And how much teaching is done to the rest of the class
when one kid is being disruptive?

"Not much."

Hernandez also points to the numbers of students in each grade in
high school as one of the key factors of implementing the policy.
As students progress in high school, their numbers begin to
dwindle over the years from 140 freshmen to about 78 seniors who
are left that graduate.

"And guess what?" Hernandez asked the attendees.
"They're leaving us. And the ones leaving us aren't the bad
kids, it's the good ones.

"And where are they going? To the three surrounding
districts around us that implement corporal punishment. And they
control them, and the parents want better for them."

Forms were sent home that parents can sign to keep their children
from being spanked at schools. And the new policy won't be
implemented until January to allow parents time to look over the
form and decide if they want to sign it or not.

"And even though we're going to implement corporal
punishment, parents still have their rights.

"If you don't want your child to be spanked, no problem.
Sign the little statement, send it in and we're going to honor
your request."

So what happens if a parent doesn't allow his/her child to
receive corporal punishment?

Saturday school.

"I don't believe in ISS (In School Suspension). Never have.
It's a waste of good educational time."

"I believe in two things; Saturday school and corporal punishment."

Hernandez stated that his Saturday school would consist of doing
school work from 8 a.m. to noon, one hour for lunch, then from 1
until 5 p.m. students will be doing community service such as
picking up trash and sweeping the hallways.

Click to enlarge

"If you're going to waste our time, I'm going to waste your
time. And that sends a message real quick.

"Or just take your three swats and get back to class."

After implementing the policy next year, Hernandez doesn't expect
a huge surge of visitors to their principal's offices, just a
handful. He believes that once a few kids receive the punishment,
the word will quickly spread.

"And like I tell parents, us as educators, that's our job. We educate.

"We're not disciplinarians. We're not here to spank your
kid; we don't want to spank your kid. We want you to take care of it for us.

"But, if a parent isn't willing to help us, then you're
forcing me to take care of the discipline. Because at the end of
the day, I have to educate the kids."